A life is being destroyed. A young girl is dying quietly in her own country. I mean where else should
she reside, if not her fatherland? She was born in Nigeria. Was she expected to relocate to London/America to get her desired life?
This is where we need every human right activist
to STAND. Her face is OUT, it’s not a rumour, it’s not a ‘made up
story’… she is out there and ready to speak. This is no longer a paper
work, where you talk and say you are fighting for the helpless. This is
when you are needed. Please help Igbobi. She can’t be left alone like
this. Too sad! Her story after the cut.she reside, if not her fatherland? She was born in Nigeria. Was she expected to relocate to London/America to get her desired life?
When the chair, Committee for the Defence of
Human Rights, CDHR, Delta State, Mr. Benefit Orugbo, called me on phone,
about a fortnight ago, and said that he had a spine chilling case of
human rights abuse in his hands, I did not understand the brutality of
the matter and almost ignored the issue.
However, it was not until Warri Reporter, EGUFE
YAFUGORHI, detailed to meet the victim at an agreed venue reported his
encounter with Igbobi Beauty Uzezi, an Air Police of the Nigerian
Air-force, NAF, with Personal Service Number, NAF10/25157F, that the
reality dawned on me.
Uzezi, who hails from Bayelsa state, revealed
that an Air-force officer (names withheld) drugged, raped and infected
her with a Sexually Transmitted Diseases, STD, and the said officer
detained and tortured her through proxies for daring to expose him and
finally got her dismissed from the Airforce.
The air-force officers she complained to and
sought help before the hammer fell on her, queried why she chose to make
trouble with the officer, pointing out that she was not the only female
personnel to pass through the ordeal.
They detained her in a cell with a mad woman,
chained her to the bed in the hospital, locked for several days without
food to force her to forgo justice. She refused to surrender and was
court marshaled after she threatened to shoot one of the air-force
officers used to intimidate her, who allegedly wanted to disarm her.
The court marshal was a leeway for those who want
her thrown out of NAF, as the case was getting messier by then.
Systematically, they congested her with drugs and a physician diagnosed
of critical depression disorder, CBD, paving way for her final
discharge.
Igbobi appeared dehumanized when she spoke to
Niger Delta Voice, NDV, and what ricocheted throughout the interview was
her cry for justice. This interview, first in the series of our reports
into and alleged Nigeria Air-force rape scandal is hair-raising. Will
she get justice?
Editor.
Tell us about your enlistment into the Air Force
My name is Igbobi Beauty Uzezi. I enlisted into
the Nigerian Airforce August 18, 2010 when I was 18. My Personal Service
Number is NAF10/25157F with seniority of Air Craft Woman, ACW, in 19
February 2011. On 17 May, 2011, two months and 10 days after my passing
out from the Nigeria Air Force basic military training, Kaduna, I was
posted to 335 Base Services Group, Kaduna as an Air Police. We reported
March 7 2011.
How did your ordeal start?
On that May 17, 2011, at about 8.00 pm, I
received a phone call from a strange number. From the conversation, I
discovered that the caller was one of our training instructors on
general service knowledge during our training (names withheld by
NDV). He said I should come to the Protestant Church inside the
Nigerian Air Force Base, Kaduna.
With lots of conviction as our former training
instructor and his claim that he was in Kaduna for a special assignment
of which I do not know, I obliged his strange invitation. Getting to the
church, I saw him and another instructor, who also trained us, Sgt.
Hossan and my course mate, who he said gave him my phone number, ACM
Bello and a woman I do not recognize.
He said I should join them to the Nigeria Defence
Academy, NDA old site. I asked why I have to join them because there
was Kafachan crisis in Kaduna then. He said they were going to drop the
woman companion at the NDA old site and return.
He said he trained me and asked if I was scared
of being with him. He said I should not entertain any fear with my
course mate on the movement. I joined them out of sheer respect and
having no thought of any sinister motive.
At the point they ought to drop the unknown
woman, I heard Sgt Hossan tell the officer (instructor),”Oga, after we
train recruit finish, e no go do something for your godson?”
Opposite the place we supposedly came was the
Communicator Mess. At that point, I asked excused myself to urinate, but
before I left, I overheard him ordering two wines and barbecue fish. I
eased myself, came back and he gave me a glass of wine.
Drugged
I took the glass of wine, not knowing he had
drugged it for me. I was urging to return home because it was late and
there was crisis. We entered the vehicle and proceeding a little, they
dropped the woman. At the Air Force Base, Kaduna, I stayed behind the
Aeromedical Hospital, opposite a branch of Oceanic Bank, now Ecobank.
Approaching there, I said I want to drop, but Sgt
Hossan said they wanted to drop the instructor in his own quarters
before coming to drop me. From their discussion, I discovered Hossan
stays in Block B next to my Block C.
We proceeded further and Bello dropped. At JD
Quarters where the officer resides, they parked opposite his apartment.
He and Sgt Hossan came down discussing while I was inside the vehicle.
The instructor came to me and said I should come
into his apartment to wait at the parlor while he finished his
discussion with Sgt Hossan, who happened to be owner of the car we drove
in. I was hoping as my immediate neighbor, he would take me home after
dropping off instructor, the last man remaining besides me.
Deception
I sat at the parlor and all of a sudden, I heard
the sound of Hossan vehicle outside and I made the door to go out to
confirm. Immediately, the instructor rushed in, pushed me back and shut
the door. I asked why he pushed me and shut the door knowing Sgt Hossan
was to take me home.
He asked in Pidgin English, “U mean say after I
train you finish as recruit, na your course mate go charge through you
first before me?”I asked what he meant by that utterance just as Sgt
Hossan zoomed off. I told him he knew quite well that it was not right
for me to be in his apartment and Hossan, supposed to take me home has
driven off.
I begged him to open the door, he refused and we started an argument. From the argument, we started fighting.
Battery and rape
He was beating me mercilessly, carrying and
hitting on the floor. If I want to scream, he would cover my mouth so
violently that no passerby hears my screaming. We struggled for more
than two hours as I shouted for help. I pleaded with him not to touch me
because it was evident he wanted to forcibly sleep with me. I pleaded
that I am a virgin and he should not hurt me.
He said it was none of his business if I were a
virgin and that he must charge through me first before any other person.
I said I will not allow him rape me. Then he hit my head against the
wall, saying he would teach me a lesson since I am proving stubborn.
Then I fainted.
Pool of blood
When I regained consciousness, I discovered the
bed I lay was soaked with water and I saw myself on a pool of blood. I
sensed he has violently beaten to coma and violated me. Even in that
state as I regained consciousness, he attempted raping me a second time.
I was weak and dizzy with the wine. cannot explain how but I managed
to struggle out of the door. Outside, I tried crossing a gutter, but
collapsed again.
Medical attention
The next day, May 18, I found myself in a
hospital bed at about noon. When I attempted urinating, my whole pelvis
was aching severely and blood coming out of my private parts. My body
was soaked with sand and water with bruises all over from the struggle
and beating from him.
They led me to the toilet, but I could not
urinate because of the pains the doctor told me the instructor and ACM
Bello brought me. asked how and why they brought me. He said the
instructor said I was having malaria and so they were managing me for
malaria, but he was doubtful of the indicated condition because of the
blood flow from my vagina. Therefore, he asked if I was seeing my
period. I said no, but could not explain because of the pain and trauma,
so he took me back to the bed.
Untimely discharge
He started asking me more questions. The medical
officer identified himself as Sgt Samsudeen. I told him to give me a
paper and pen. The more I was writing the more I felt traumatized. At
this point, I mustered courage to open up to him my ordeal. On hearing
my story, he called in two colleagues, Sgt. Uganjuwa, now Flying Officer
and Flying Officer Balami, a medical doctor.
They examined me and I overheard them saying this
is a big problem and wondering how they were going to hide it, not
wanting to be involved. They quickly discharged me knowing I was not yet
okay at all. They took me to my apartment and told me I have injections
and drugs to come and take the next day.
Conspiracy to cover up the rape and battery
The next day, May 19, I received a call from Dr.
Balami saying the Aeromedical Commander, Air Cmdr Shinkafi, wants to see
me aside injections I needed to take. There was no strength in me at
that point. I was still bleeding and aching all over my body, but
because of the urgency of medical attention I needed, I summoned courage
to be at the hospital, which was luckily just behind my apartment.
A passerby, who saw me struggling to walk down,
assisted me to the hospital. I got there and no one was willing to
attend to me. I was groaning in pains, but they said I should wait for
the Aero-medical Commander. Then I collapsed again. I never knew where I
was and what they did to me. I spent two weeks and three days in the
hospital from that point. During my hospitalization, they took me to
theatre, but they never told me what operation they carried out on my
body.
They kept me secluded from other patients. I
noticed that I bled for three days before they took me to the theatre.
They did scan on me, after those two weeks and three days, they
discharged me. During my admission, Squadron Leader Okafor, now late,
was the Commanding Officer I served under as an Air Police, he came and
collected an official statement from me and told me the Air Force was
going to give me justice.
Warned to keep mum
After my discharge from the hospital, the
Aero-medical Commander told me I should not talk, that Air Force would
give me justice. Air Commodore N.A. Sanusi told me same. The late AVM
Salihu, Air Officer Commanding Training Command in Kaduna and the Base
Commander 335 Base Services Route, where I was serving, also told me not
to talk.
Air Commodore Sanusi, Director of Air Police was
repeatedly warning that I should not speak of my ordeal to the hearing
of the society, including my family. Surprisingly they appointed a
marshal on the incident, but they neither allowed me to have a lawyer
nor participate in telling my story, except one day they asked me to
appear as a witness to prove how the instructor brutally battered and
defiled me as a virgin. They brought prosecution counsels and denied me
access to the marshal, all in bid to cover up and sweep the criminality
under the carpet.
Punitive posting/intimidation
Immediately after the court marshal, they posted
me outside Kaduna in that 2011, I was not due for posting. I am supposed
to serve for minimum four years in Kaduna before posting from my first
service point. At Abuja, victimization started. In muster parade, Group
Capt Inuwa would be asking me before everybody if my virginity was gold.
He would say these people were very wicked and they can easily kill me.
He told me this not once, not twice with serious
threats. He started the intimidation and threat to my life. When I
voiced that what they did to me is injustice, they would say I am a
fowl, they can easily kill and that nothing would happen if they kill
me. They asked me if I do not know that Airforce women are officers’
materials and said that my rape was not the first case.
Infected with STD
From there, I was so restricted and so monitored
that I never had a life of my own anymore. In addition, the rapist
infected me with severe STD, which they never told me. They were giving
me antibiotics and I started fainting on regular basis from that May I
left hospital in Kaduna up until my transfer to Abuja. When I asked what
was wrong with me, they would say nothing.
In 2012, they posted me unduly again to Lagos.
They posted me abruptly again because they found I wanted to expose them
as I had gone to Human Rights Fighters in Abuja where they interviewed
me. In one of my encounters with Human Rights group, the officer and his
gang called to threatened that I would die or not be alive to try the
case after which I did not hear from the human rights people again.
I also contacted Barrister Okon because of my
ordeal with the rape and torture and the fact that they did not give me
adequate medical attention. I had vaginal discharge, swollen vulva,
severe itching, pelvic pains, which they termed chronic pelvic
inflammatory disease.
At that point, my kidney enlargement was between
10.2 and 11.4cm because I could not urinate frequently from the pelvic
pain and the sexual violation, which doctors that attended to me at the
NAF Base Kaduna established. They certified that my sexual violation,
physical assault and brutal rape with document reports.
No comments:
Post a Comment